In general, reduced revenue means cuts...and often, R&D is one of the first cuts to be made. Sad, but true.

well a malicious guy could say: i have not seen much sensor development in the past 4 years.... so what?

On the subject of R&D, check out the Chipworks report on full-frame DSLR camera sensors from a few days ago. Canon is basically still using the same fabrication technology for their sensors that they used in the 5DC, while their competitors have long moved on, so you could say that there hasn't been much sensor development in the past 7 years. (...)

It's maybe long enough for guys in Sony to change their employer? Seven years is quite long to think about a change Patents are one thing, but without a good brain fighting against patents is senseless. I still don't know where all those Canon's patents are located, if they are so behind in sesnor technology?

Smartphones are killing the compact camera business; the DSLR business is small in comparison, especially the high-end DSLR business. And don't forget copiers, printers, scanners, medical, and industrial components.

Smartphones are killing the compact camera business; the DSLR business is small in comparison, especially the high-end DSLR business. And don't forget copiers, printers, scanners, medical, and industrial components.

Excellent point and the question remains: is Canon or is not the huge supplier of camera sensors for smartphones? If Canon delivers such sensors then great - they loose on p&s but get back something on smartphones market.If Canon doesn't deliver... then... why exactly?

I also think technology is getting to the point where the annual upgrades are so incremental, you really don't need to buy a new model every few years. The 5DII will still actually produce beautiful photos in 5 years from now.

Probably because no one had the D800 in stock, and low supply means high demand which means no market drive for a lower price.

The stock has been good for some time now but I still have not seen any shocking deals on this body.

Quote

I thought $3500 was not unreasonable. The IQ of a 5DII (already excellent) coupled with the AF system of a camera costing >$3K more, plus 6 fps shooting speed? That's a powerful combination. If I had any interest in purchasing a 5DIII, would I want it to be cheaper? Of course. But if I had been interested in purchasing a 5DIII, the $3500 price would not have affected my decision. Amortized over a 3 year life of the camera, $500 becomes something like 46¢ per day. My morning coffee cost 10 times that. Just sayin'.

Well, the street price drop is more than $500 in the US and considering Canadian online buyers it is around $1K for us. I do realize the MSRP was not an issue for some. However, this is not what i am talking about. Yes, the extra $500-$750 might not be a big deal for pros who have this cam as a money making machine, or for some who can afford to pay even more than that without any significant financial impact. But consider D800 sitting next to it at $3K and consider over 800 Canon units which Adorama easily moved in just a couple of days at a $750 discount. I don't think that $2750 is just a pocket change for many in these hard economic times, however folks jumped on this deal right away. Nobody is expecting to have MKIII discounted into oblivion, but people are ready to spend close to $3K of hard earned cash for this item. Again, this is not just about purchaser's expectation of a cheaper price. Its about current market situation (mostly direct competition from D800).

I am neither a corporate financial analyst nor am I even well informed on the relative performance of Canon vis- a-vis other camera makers, such as Nikon or Sony, and I didn't even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. But, has anyone even wondered just a tiny bit whether or not there may have been just a tiny twinge of sarcasm in the OP by this site's administrator? After all, making just under a billion dollars profit in a single quarter in today's business climate doesn't seem very bad to me. What do you others think about that?

Furthermore, I doubt very much whether the dynamic range of Canon's sensors or even the available feature sets in their current DSLR lineup has even the remotest tangential connection with the current downturn in their profit margins. Could there eventually be such a connection in the future? Yes, but not for a very long time down the road, as although these values are hot topics in forums like this one and in DPR, in the minds of the vast majority of camera buyers, these currently matter almost not at all.

Common sense tells me that what is happening to Canon right now is probably chiefly related to (in order by significance):

1) The worldwide downturn in economic activity that is affecting most of the developed world2) The movement to use cellphones instead of point & shoot cameras for everyday snapshots3) Problems with production in both Japan and China4) Increasing overall competition from many companies which have all struggled for increased market share during a period of slow-to-negative growth in the overall market5) Less than stellar marketing, product planning and price point reaearch6) Some, but not a lot, of the stasis and play-it-safe caution which almost always eventually affects market leaders (as Canon has so long been) in their fields of expertise

As to the ever popular ideas of Canon's supposed sloth or lack of ability in developing Sonikon-like sensors and their slightly less generous feature allocation to cameras down the price point ladder, I believe that the people posing these criticisms have a point, but not a very great one, and that Canon surely will soon respond to some of these by both introducing new sensor lines and upgrading features somewhat by either firmware updates or new model variations. The most recent firmware updates and price reductions are evidence of the beginning of this trend which I think we''l be seeing a lot more of in the future.

Canon didn't get where they are now by being stupid or unaware of their markets; they will undoubtedly improve their corporate governance to try to maintain their market leadership. I cannot say how or how fast they will do it, but I am very confident that they will, indeed, do it.

Last, I would be much more worried, in general, about Canon's business equipment divisions than I would about their photo business. Not only is the world-wide recession affecting this market way more than that for cameras, but I think that the trend away from printing towards the long expected but never realized "paperless office" is, by virtue of business cost cutting due to economic necessity, finally starting to be significant; since Canon's office eqipment business is mostly about paper printers, on one level or another, and that I'd expect the falling market in that category to continue indefintely, I'd think that that part of Canon's business is most in jeopardy, and that they need to somehow diversify or downsize that division very rapidly to make up for it.

Probably because no one had the D800 in stock, and low supply means high demand which means no market drive for a lower price.

The stock has been good for some time now but I still have not seen any shocking deals on this body.

Quote

I thought $3500 was not unreasonable. The IQ of a 5DII (already excellent) coupled with the AF system of a camera costing >$3K more, plus 6 fps shooting speed? That's a powerful combination. If I had any interest in purchasing a 5DIII, would I want it to be cheaper? Of course. But if I had been interested in purchasing a 5DIII, the $3500 price would not have affected my decision. Amortized over a 3 year life of the camera, $500 becomes something like 46¢ per day. My morning coffee cost 10 times that. Just sayin'.

Well, the street price drop is more than $500 in the US and considering Canadian online buyers it is around $1K for us. I do realize the MSRP was not an issue for some. However, this is not what i am talking about. Yes, the extra $500-$750 might not be a big deal for pros who have this cam as a money making machine, or for some who can afford to pay even more than that without any significant financial impact. But consider D800 sitting next to it at $3K and consider over 800 Canon units which Adorama easily moved in just a couple of days at a $750 discount. I don't think that $2750 is just a pocket change for many in these hard economic times, however folks jumped on this deal right away. Nobody is expecting to have MKIII discounted into oblivion, but people are ready to spend close to $3K of hard earned cash for this item. Again, this is not just about purchaser's expectation of a cheaper price. Its about current market situation (mostly direct competition from D800).

I think you are confusing what competition is. It is pretty clear that the 5D III and D800 are meant for different market segments. They are NOT direct competitors. The 5D III is without question a wedding photographers camera, as well as a great backup sports/wildlifers/birders body, on top of being the greatest general-purpose camera ever made. The D800 has NOT taken terribly well with wedding photographers (while some seem to like it, many more have found it to be very poorly suited to the segment), it does not serve well as a backup sports body, it is a superb studio and landscape camera, and as such it is definitely more of a direct competitor to MFD cameras than the worlds greatest general-purpose camera. I see more bird and wildlife photographers using the D600 than the D800.

I think it is fundamentally flawed to call the 5D III and D800 direct competitors. At the moment, I am not sure the 5D III, with its amazing AF system, good middle-ground megapixels, high frame rate, and pro-grade build really has any kind of "direct" competitor, although the D600 might actually be closer than the D800.

Probably because no one had the D800 in stock, and low supply means high demand which means no market drive for a lower price.

The stock has been good for some time now but I still have not seen any shocking deals on this body.

Quote

I thought $3500 was not unreasonable. The IQ of a 5DII (already excellent) coupled with the AF system of a camera costing >$3K more, plus 6 fps shooting speed? That's a powerful combination. If I had any interest in purchasing a 5DIII, would I want it to be cheaper? Of course. But if I had been interested in purchasing a 5DIII, the $3500 price would not have affected my decision. Amortized over a 3 year life of the camera, $500 becomes something like 46¢ per day. My morning coffee cost 10 times that. Just sayin'.

Well, the street price drop is more than $500 in the US and considering Canadian online buyers it is around $1K for us. I do realize the MSRP was not an issue for some. However, this is not what i am talking about. Yes, the extra $500-$750 might not be a big deal for pros who have this cam as a money making machine, or for some who can afford to pay even more than that without any significant financial impact. But consider D800 sitting next to it at $3K and consider over 800 Canon units which Adorama easily moved in just a couple of days at a $750 discount. I don't think that $2750 is just a pocket change for many in these hard economic times, however folks jumped on this deal right away. Nobody is expecting to have MKIII discounted into oblivion, but people are ready to spend close to $3K of hard earned cash for this item. Again, this is not just about purchaser's expectation of a cheaper price. Its about current market situation (mostly direct competition from D800).

I think you are confusing what competition is. It is pretty clear that the 5D III and D800 are meant for different market segments. They are NOT direct competitors. The 5D III is without question a wedding photographers camera, as well as a great backup sports/wildlifers/birders body, on top of being the greatest general-purpose camera ever made. The D800 has NOT taken terribly well with wedding photographers (while some seem to like it, many more have found it to be very poorly suited to the segment), it does not serve well as a backup sports body, it is a superb studio and landscape camera, and as such it is definitely more of a direct competitor to MFD cameras than the worlds greatest general-purpose camera. I see more bird and wildlife photographers using the D600 than the D800.

I think it is fundamentally flawed to call the 5D III and D800 direct competitors. At the moment, I am not sure the 5D III, with its amazing AF system, good middle-ground megapixels, high frame rate, and pro-grade build really has any kind of "direct" competitor, although the D600 might actually be closer than the D800.

But I think, that if there were people saying "5d3 is too expensive for me as for its sensor capabilities, I'm going to buy d800", then somehow, no matter if Canon or Nikon wanted to make those products competitive or not, it happened so in some way anyway Even if 5d3 and d800 are different tools for different purposes, there were people, who just wanted to have a new toy and only those toys were available at this time.

Can't be: the 5D3 and the 1DX are the best cameras ever and their price is perfectly fair, so they must be selling like hotcakes. Those Canon managers that presented this financial report are just Nikon fanboys.

On a more serious note, let's wait and see Nikon's numbers, then we'll have a clearer picture of whether it is slow world demand, or Canon-specific issues, that are pulling their results down.

"Demand for interchangeable-lens digital cameras continued to realize robust growth in all regions while the market for compact digital cameras shrunk due to the stagnation of the global economy."

"Within the Imaging System Business Unit, despite efforts to achieve sales growth with the competitively priced EOS Digital Rebel series along with the EOS 5D Mark III and EOS 60D advanced-amateur models, sales volumes of interchangeable-lens digital cameras decreased from the year-ago period due to a delayed new-product launch."

Why would anyone want to waste their time reading the report, when they can spend it writing uninformed comments that bear no relation to the facts?

Have you checked Sony's financial report? It might give you a hint. They are losing money hand over fist due to lowering prices to compete with South Korea. You got your TV below cost. Hopefully, Sony will still be in business if it needs repair. The first thing Sony has dropped when times were tough was customer service, and for them, times are very tough.

You just need to look at other areas:

Amazon posted its first loss in four years (admittedly Amazon has a variety of problems).

Apple has not met analyst expectations of its profits

Sony is losing money - as you mention

I don't think I need to go on to list all the businesses that are seeing lower sales and revenue than expected.

In the current trading conditions, Canon has probably done quite well. Canon has probably done well to contain costs by sticking with a mature process for the sensors on its current range of full frame bodies. Hopefully that will place it in a good position to invest in new production capacity for the next generation of cameras. - That is making the assumption that the current economic malaise starts to turn around within 3 to 4 years.

Aside from the difficult market outlook, P&S cameras are under threat from phones, and printers are under threat from the paperless office.

As far as cutting R&D spending goes, yes, I expect some of that may happen. On the other hand, Japanese companies tend to play a longer term game than their American and European counterparts. - I have noticed that since my employer was bought by a large Japanese telco and delisted. There is more investment in R&D, more emphasis on longer term investments etc.